Skills
skills/aklofas/kicad-happy/element14

element14

SKILL.md

element14 / Newark / Farnell — Component Search, Datasheets & Ordering

One API covers three regional storefronts — same catalog, same datasheets, only pricing/stock vary by region:

Storefront Region Store ID
Newark North America www.newark.com
Farnell UK / Europe uk.farnell.com
element14 Asia-Pacific au.element14.com

For BOM management and export workflows, see bom.

Key Differences from DigiKey/Mouser

  • Simple auth — API key as a query parameter, no OAuth flow
  • Free API key — register at partner.element14.com, courtesy usage allowance
  • Global coverage — same API covers US (Newark), EU (Farnell), APAC (element14)
  • Unprotected PDFs — datasheets hosted on farnell.com CDN, download freely with no bot protection
  • Datasheet URL in API response — responseGroup=medium includes datasheets[].url

API Credential Setup

  1. Register at partner.element14.com/member/register
    • Free account — just username, email, password. No credit card needed.
    • Provides a "courtesy usage allowance" (2 calls/sec, 1,000 calls/day — sufficient for normal use)
  2. Register an application — after logging in, go to My API Keys and click "Get API Keys"
    • App name: anything (e.g., "claude-code")
    • Type: "Desktop application"
    • Users: "1-10"
    • Commercial: No
    • Advertising: No
    • Check "Issue a new key for Product Search API" → select "Basic" tier
    • Agree to Terms of Service and click "Register Application"
  3. Copy your API key — a 24-character alphanumeric string shown on the My API Keys page
  4. Set the environment variable ELEMENT14_API_KEY before running the scripts: 
    export ELEMENT14_API_KEY=your_api_key_here
    If credentials are stored in a central secrets file (e.g., ~/.config/secrets.env), load them first: 
    export $(grep -v '^#' ~/.config/secrets.env | grep -v '^$' | xargs)

Product Search API

Base URL: https://api.element14.com/catalog/products

All requests use GET with query parameters. Authentication is via callInfo.apiKey.

Search Modes

The term parameter supports three search types:

Mode Format Example
Keyword any:<keywords> term=any:100nF 0402 X7R
MPN manuPartNum:<mpn> term=manuPartNum:GRM155R71C104KA88D
Distributor PN id:<sku> term=id:94AK6874

Full Example

GET https://api.element14.com/catalog/products
  ?term=manuPartNum:GRM155R71C104KA88D
  &storeInfo.id=www.newark.com
  &resultsSettings.offset=0
  &resultsSettings.numberOfResults=10
  &resultsSettings.responseGroup=medium
  &callInfo.responseDataFormat=JSON
  &callInfo.apiKey=YOUR_KEY

Response Groups

Group Fields
small SKU, displayName, brandName, MPN, attributes
medium + datasheets[], prices[], stock
large + images, related products, country of origin
prices Tiered pricing only
inventory Stock levels by warehouse/region

Response Format

With responseGroup=medium, the response looks like:

{
  "manufacturerPartNumberSearchReturn": {
    "numberOfResults": 5,
    "products": [
      {
        "sku": "94AK6874",
        "displayName": "Murata GRM155R71C104KA88D",
        "translatedManufacturerPartNumber": "GRM155R71C104KA88D",
        "brandName": "Murata Electronics",
        "datasheets": [
          {
            "type": "TechnicalDataSheet",
            "description": "Datasheet",
            "url": "https://www.farnell.com/datasheets/74273.pdf"
          }
        ],
        "prices": [
          {
            "from": 1,
            "to": 9,
            "cost": 0.156
          }
        ],
        "stock": {
          "level": 45000,
          "leastLeadTime": 0,
          "status": 4,
          "statusMessage": "In Stock"
        },
        "attributes": [
          {"attributeLabel": "Capacitance", "attributeUnit": "", "attributeValue": "100nF"},
          {"attributeLabel": "Voltage Rating", "attributeUnit": "V", "attributeValue": "16"}
        ],
        "rohsStatusCode": "YES"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Key fields:

  • sku — Newark/Farnell/element14 part number
  • translatedManufacturerPartNumber — MPN
  • brandName — manufacturer
  • datasheets[].url — direct PDF URL (farnell.com CDN, no bot protection)
  • datasheets[].type — usually TechnicalDataSheet
  • prices[] — tiered pricing with from, to, cost
  • stock.level — quantity in stock
  • stock.statusMessage — human-readable availability
  • attributes[] — parametric specs (label, unit, value)
  • rohsStatusCode — RoHS compliance (YES/NO)

Store IDs

Common store IDs for the storeInfo.id parameter:

Store ID Region
www.newark.com US (default)
uk.farnell.com UK
www.farnell.com EU
au.element14.com Australia
sg.element14.com Singapore
in.element14.com India

Rate Limits

No documented rate limits beyond the courtesy usage allowance. Be respectful — use 0.5s delays between calls.

Filters

Add to query parameters:

  • resultsSettings.refinements.filter=rohsCompliant — RoHS parts only
  • resultsSettings.refinements.filter=inStock — in-stock only

Pagination

  • resultsSettings.offset — starting index (0-based)
  • resultsSettings.numberOfResults — max 50 per page
  • Only the first 100 results are reliably pageable

Datasheet Download & Sync

element14's farnell.com CDN serves datasheet PDFs directly — no bot protection, no special headers needed. Datasheet URLs come from the API response (datasheets[].url).

Datasheet Directory Sync

Use sync_datasheets_element14.py to maintain a datasheets/ directory alongside a KiCad project. Same workflow and index.json format as the DigiKey, Mouser, and LCSC skills.

# Sync datasheets for a KiCad project
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/sync_datasheets_element14.py <file.kicad_sch>

# Preview what would be downloaded
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/sync_datasheets_element14.py <file.kicad_sch> --dry-run

# Retry previously failed downloads
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/sync_datasheets_element14.py <file.kicad_sch> --force

# Use a specific store (default: www.newark.com)
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/sync_datasheets_element14.py <file.kicad_sch> --store uk.farnell.com

# Custom output directory
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/sync_datasheets_element14.py <file.kicad_sch> -o ./my-datasheets

# Parallel downloads (3 workers)
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/sync_datasheets_element14.py <file.kicad_sch> --parallel 3

The script:

  • Runs the kicad schematic analyzer to extract components, MPNs, and distributor PNs
  • Accepts any identifier — MPN, Newark/Farnell PN, or other distributor PNs from KiCad symbol properties
  • Prefers MPN search (manuPartNum:) for exact match — falls back to keyword search
  • Downloads from farnell.com CDN — direct PDF URLs, no bot protection
  • Writes index.json manifest — same format as DigiKey/Mouser/LCSC skills
  • Verifies PDF content — checks MPN, manufacturer, and description keywords
  • Rate-limited — 0.5s between API calls (configurable with --delay)
  • Saves progress incrementally — safe to interrupt

Single Datasheet Download

Use fetch_datasheet_element14.py for one-off downloads.

# Search by MPN
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/fetch_datasheet_element14.py --search "GRM155R71C104KA88D" -o datasheet.pdf

# Search by Newark/Farnell part number
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/fetch_datasheet_element14.py --search "94AK6874" -o datasheet.pdf

# Direct URL download
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/fetch_datasheet_element14.py "https://www.farnell.com/datasheets/74273.pdf" -o datasheet.pdf

# JSON output
python3 <skill-path>/scripts/fetch_datasheet_element14.py --search "GRM155R71C104KA88D" --json

The script:

  • OS-agnostic — uses requests → urllib → playwright fallback chain
  • Validates PDF headers — rejects HTML error pages
  • Falls back to alternative manufacturer sources when element14 URL fails
  • Exit codes: 0 = success, 1 = download failed, 2 = search/API error
  • Dependencies:
    • pip install requests (recommended; urllib fallback works fine for element14)
    • pip install playwright && playwright install chromium (optional; rarely needed)

Web Search Fallback

If the API is unavailable, search via WebFetch:

https://www.newark.com/search?st=<query>
https://uk.farnell.com/search?st=<query>

Tips

  • Use responseGroup=medium — includes datasheets and pricing without the overhead of large
  • Use manuPartNum: prefix for exact MPN matches; any: for keyword search
  • Cross-reference using translatedManufacturerPartNumber (MPN) across DigiKey/Mouser/LCSC
  • Useful for international users where DigiKey/Mouser shipping is expensive
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aklofas/kicad-happy
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